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Declarative UI for Eclipse <Subtitle? >

Declarative UI for Eclipse <Subtitle? >. Bernd Kolb (SAP) Benjamin Pasero (IBM Research) Yves Yang (Soyatec). Agenda. Declarative UI for Eclipse Introduction to the topic Demo of our prototype XWT - Declarative UI Designed for Eclipse Discussion

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Declarative UI for Eclipse <Subtitle? >

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  1. Declarative UI for Eclipse<Subtitle? > Bernd Kolb (SAP) Benjamin Pasero (IBM Research) Yves Yang (Soyatec)

  2. Agenda • Declarative UI for Eclipse • Introduction to the topic • Demo of our prototype • XWT - Declarative UI Designed for Eclipse • Discussion • Goal: Initiate the discussion in this area

  3. What is “Declarative?” • Describe what UI you want • Not how you want it constructed • In some specification language (often XML)

  4. Difficulties in UI development today • High technology pre-requisite as UI developer • Poor reusability – Boilerplate Code • Limited Dynamic UI • Difficult integration with developer tools • Visual Editor • Modeling Tools

  5. Be Language and Widget Neutral • Generate code in target language • Or let an engine instantiate widgets directly • Generate to various target widget toolkits • e.g. SWT, Swing, QT, embedded,… • Depends on level of abstraction of the declarative system • If all you’ve done is modelled SWT widgets, then it’ll be difficult to generate Swing

  6. Simple Expressions • Ensure clear structure • Logical nesting of widgets • Can be different than physical nesting • e.g. SWT TabFolder and TabItem

  7. 1st Class Tooling • Tooling operates on description, not widgets • Higher level description allows higher level authoring • Description Editor • Visual Designer • UI Modeler and Generator

  8. Separation of UI and Business • Often different domains work on the same UI • A UI Designer with expertise in design • A Software Developer with expertise in the business logic • Often gap between domains • A software developer having a hard time implementing what the UI designer dreams of • Close the gap with a common language (DSL) • Do we need this slide at all?

  9. Clearer Relationship to Data Model • Establish clear relationship to the data model • Declarative Data Binding • Declarative Action Handling • Declarative Validation • See prototype demo later

  10. Higher Level Expression for UI • Support for Templates • Group widgets and state • e.g. Form field • Label • Input Field • Decoration (Validation) • Layout • Reusable UI Components

  11. Higher Level Reasoning • Different levels of models • Matches exactly with SWT • Higher level abstraction of composites, elements • Semantic level description of UI requirements • Model to model transformations • Can generate from one model to another • Do we want this slide? What does it tell?

  12. Integration with other solutions • Support for JFace • Data Binding • CSS Styling (e4) • EMF • Modelled Workbench (e4) • More ideas?

  13. Existing Technologies • Various interesting technologies • XUL (Mozilla) • JSF • MXML Flex • XSWT • Silverlight (XAML) • Do we really need this slide?

  14. Work ongoing at Eclipse • E4 • CSS Styles • Modelled Workbench • XWT • UFaceKit • Hallvard's work (???)

  15. Demo • Prototype • Done in ~3 days • EMF • SWT • DSL • … • http://code.google.com/p/eclipsecon2009dui/

  16. Discussion • Can there be 1 generic language to fit all target windowing systems? • What about Rich Client vs Web Client? • What do people expect from the UI in different contexts? • What about save/restore widget state from XML or DSL? What about Listeners? • Using DSL vs using XML?

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